QUENTIN LETTS: The Queen could not have looked more delighted to greet the old despot

Last updated at 13:49 31 October 2007

Human rights and anti-arms trade activists protested yesterday as the Queen welcomed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to Britain.

Last night she was hosting a state banquet for him at Buckingham Palace.

What a gym-khana of hats and headgear we had on Horse Guards Parade when the king of Saudi Arabia was welcomed by the Queen.

Human rights protesters may have been cross but it was an event to bring tears to the eyes of any milliner.

King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques - now there's a name to give immigration officials something to suck on - rolled up in the Queen's spare Bentley.

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His Majesty was attired in a white ghutra an iqal (Arab topknot) above his magnificent gold-bordered robes.

He was followed by a convoy of silver Mercedes from which sprang an anthill of Saudi princes, their heads covered in red and white teatowels fixed by circles of black rope.

The home team had risen to the challenge. Maj-Gen William Cubitt, General Officer Commanding London District, didn't get where he is today by being upstaged.

No sir! He was kitted out in a helmet topped by ostrich plumes which fluttered in the autumn breeze.

Lord Vestey, Master of the Horse, was also in feathered splendour, his red uniform decorated with so much braid that he looked like something from the rope store at Chatham docks.

Pull the right bit of scrambled egg on old Vestey and he toots like Thomas the Tank Engine.

The royal pavilion also boasted two fluffy tricorn hats, the military titfers of an admiral, general and Air Chief Marshal, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in his best cap, the Queen in a claretcoloured pillar box number, and the Duke of Edinburgh in black top hat. On the parade ground it was busbies for the Ist Battalion Welsh Guards and shiny helmets for the Household Cavalry.

Ditto Foreign Office minister Kim Howells (standing in for Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who had decided he had better things to do at home with his newly-acquired American baby).

To fill time the Welsh Guards band played a medley which included the theme tunes to Indiana Jones and Star Wars. The Sergeant Major bawled at his guardsmen to get their dressing. "Number Nine, forward, forward, forward, STOPPPPP!"

Of minor members of the Royal Family there was no sign. Best to keep them away from soldier boys at present, maybe.

The Queen arrived on the button at 12.15, the Horse Guards clock striking the quarter hour the moment her Bentley purred on to the gravelled parade ground.

They had motored up a Mall decorated by vast Union Jacks and green Saudi flags with a busy little squiggle in the middle.

Beside the royal pavilion were the away supporters' enclosures, one for guests of the Saudi ambassador, the other for all those princes.

I spotted just one woman in the ambassador's box.

Meanwhile Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, was standing near the Prime Minister. She was in a chocolate trouser suit with cream piping. Mr Brown, spurning any thought of a morning coat, wore a lounge suit, lilac tie and lopsided grin.

When King Abdullah turned up at 12.20pm he was sporting sunglasses and a soupstrainer moustache. The Queen could not have looked more delighted to greet the old despot.

Her gaiety at these occasions is infectious.

My gaze, however, was by now glued to Abdullah's impeccably neat goatee beard. What a dark colour it is for a man of his 84 years.

Looks as though he has dipped his chin in a bottle of black Quink ink.

Prince Charles, who had arrived with the king, moved to the sidelines and looked a touch sad. Not even his mother's merriment could lift his apparent melancholy.

After the Saudi anthem - creditably brief - and distant booming guns of salute, Maj Benedict Ramsay of the Welsh Guards marched up, dipped his sword and spouted some Arabic.

He was asking the king to inspect the Guard of Honour.

Prince Philip accompanied the king, as did a Saudi military man with a faint air of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the Surete.

Prince Philip thought he had trodden in something and looked back at where he had stepped.

It wasn't a horse dropping, happily.

The king returned the salutes of the various Gilbert and Sullivan top brass. He shook the hand of Sir Ian Blair which was covered in a white glove. Loaned by forensics?

The female Lord Mayor of Westminster did an odd little gesture when presented to the king.

First she touched her left breast.

Then she fell into a dramatic curtsey. For a second I thought her high heel must have snapped.

Up clopped horses and carriages, complete with postillions in Regency wigs. The Queen and King Abdullah - plus interpreter - mounted steps into the Australian State Coach and were ridden away by Head Coachman Jack Hargreaves, gently clicking his tongue at horses Daniel, Stevenson, McCarthy, San Anton, Marsa and Jasper.

The Duke of Edinburgh and two Saudis clambered into the Scottish State Coach (no steps for them).

Prince Charles, still looking sad, had to make do with Lord Vestey and the open-topped No 1 Semi-State Landau, plus cargo of two Arabian princes.

Small talk looked to be at a premium.

And that was pretty much that. Ceremonial at its whiskery best had drawn to an end. The Prime Minister stomped off back to his work.

The Band of the Welsh Guards (one of the few military bands left standing by Labour) departed to the strains of Cwm Rhondda.

Our important Saudi visitors, with their golden pockets, must surely have reflected that when it comes to pomp and circumstance no one quite does it like the British.